Poor Suicide Squad Sales Disappoint Publisher Warner Bros

Hope they learn from this.

Only Warner Bros could be surprised that turning a long standing beloved single player series into a live service looter shooter, in which you kill off the hero from said series, might not be a big success

lmao

Good. Unsurprising, but good to hear all the same.

Can't believe Rocksteady wasted years developing this live service... thing.

Only Mystic Meg could ever have predicted this.

Good, i’m happy its undelivered.

Hopefully now they’ll let Rocksteady make the game they want to make cause I refuse to believe they wanted this.

@Jacko11 Sadly I think the staff that wanted a better game left. And more than likely this will be the end of Rocksteady 😪

Hoping a game fails feels weird and bad. But that's what the push towards live service has brought us to. I hope they all fail so hard that developers finally realize that Epic fell ass backwards into a live service success and no one will ever replicate it directly. Make a fun game first. They understood this before Fortnite. Maybe they will again.

@carlos82 Imagine TLoU part 2 but a live service game where you ONLY play as Abbey and crew hunting down the cast of the 1st game. That backlash would have been legendary 🤣

I'm very happy about this it means they can move on as fast as possible to something else! That's assuming they make it through this, I know this current leadership of WB has zero tolerance for failure so this could be the end of Rocksteady.

I was hoping to play this with friends at launch but after all the trailers, none of them wanted to pay for this. I can only assume that it will be massively reduced or even put into the PlayStation Plus service in the not too distant future, so I will hopefully get it played then.

Yeah, I'm not surprised. In fact, this could be good for the industry. A GaaS that is fundamentally flawed and mediocre in its mechanics, game design, and story failed.

This could be the end of Rocksteady, but most of the talent left, so I'm not going to be sad about it. Rocksteady ended a long time ago.

arkham origins multiplayer > suicide squad

@Bentleyma We don't need to play it to dislike it. It's a live-service looter-shooter with bright colours designed to appeal to the Fortnite kids.

like clockwork. maybe it is time to stop making trash GaaS products and give people what they wanted in the first place? just a thought.

Force a team to make a live service game and then lay them off when it doesn't work.

Not sure what they expected. This was a game no one asked for from a genre that is very, very hard to be successful in (live-service).

It’s amazing how companies actually have expectations of selling a Poo. 💩

Wish I was a very high paid executive and could predict that Poo 💩 doesn’t sell well.

Perhaps these are the same daft idiots that we get politicians from. 😂

I just can't believe it! Who could have saw this coming? (Everyone)

@Bentleyma that is why reviews exist in case you didn't know? reviews are intended to give people the information they need to make an informed decision on whether or not to spend their money on something. not to mention all the gameplay footage that exists out there alone... this isn't the 90s haha. in the case of suicide squad, purchasing the game would be a giant waste of money for the vast majority of people and would be giving the publisher the wrong idea — that we want more GaaS products when in reality, many people simply do not. heck, even going into it as a GaaS product, it is mediocre and fails on that front as well. please stop trying to defend a game that is sitting at a 60 on metacritc. you look desperate and ill-informed. glad you like the game. the rest of us have our own reasons as to why we don't.

Well, they're not helping the situation. My game has been broke since day one. My Mastery/Crisis Levels are bugged that I can't progress with the endgame, it's been 23 days without a fix. No reason for me to play since it doesn't work, It's a shame because I was having a blast with it even defending the game but now I just don't care.

Gee what a surprise, I wonder why it didn't sell well. /s

Least surprising thing ever haha

I’m shocked. But not really. Any chance it had at launch was ruined by the sheer incompetence on display. Each patch, which are basically hot fixes by the way, adds up to 10-30 gigabytes and breaks the game more. Even people who enjoyed it are giving it the finger.

@PopoverButton Oh I agree on both fronts. Batman Arkham was the Batman TAS Nostalgia we didnt know we needed at the time and the played a big part in Rocksteadys success. That's what its draft to not only abandon the Batman Arkham title ( marketing wise anyway) but the KILL OFF the most popular character in the franchise built on his name 🤣

Wait a minute! I was told by a few people in the comments that any and every game that debuts at number one on the charts is a surefire hit. Was I being lied to?

I'm utterly stunned by this completely shocking and unexpected news.

So, a game no one wanted is not selling...
Hope WB understands live-service games are over and stop forcing their studios into creating those games, and that they do not shutdown Rocksteady for this.

It is rubbish
Same thing over and over
Massive regret buying jt

Good. I love waking up to the news of another failed live service game.

I just wish we could get a demo or a trial to play so those of us who haven't played it can try it for ourselves.

I personally just don't understand the push from WB for the Suicide Squad in general, considering the enormous amount of money they've lost on the movies. The Harley Quinn Halloween costume was crazy popular that one year, maybe they're going off of that?

WB: “Hey guys, here’s a middling-to-average live service game that you didn’t ask for! Give us money based on the Arkham reputation!”

Buyers: “No.”

WB: surprisedpikachu.gif

Live service games aren't over, so stop being crazy, people! Helldivers 2 is literally mentioned in this article!!! And if a game is designed to be a good live service game, then that is fine.

It's just that this is not what this game is. It's just an IP, a concept, and then a bunch of outside interference to make it live service

Awwww they must be really upset that people didn't fall for it. My heart absolutely bleeds.

Well deserved failure for Warner Bros. This would have been the fate of many PS Studios games, thankfully someone at Sony woke up before a disaster happened.
The live service market is cornered, unless a Cinderella hit like Helldivers happens (TBD on how long it lasts), nothing is breaking through anymore. It is absolutely amazing how none of these cutthroat, corporate "by the numbers & for the shareholders" fools can't put 2 & 2 together.

They will probably learn to make a copycat of Helldivers, sadly.

Well I’ve been enjoying it at least 😂

I’ve only been playing through the story (solo) mind you.

I think we all knew this was going to happen though. They can’t be surprised.

@3Above they won't

@Ravix how can you compare Helldivers to this steaming pile of crap

And at the same time Miyazaki is saying that From Software has a politics of empowering their staff so that he can delegate and more people can take the responsibility of the role of director. It's like they have a clear vision about how to be successful and survive in this economy that doesn't always make sense. For the Suicide Squad adventure, it was like the contrary of this approach...

WarnerBros needs to work with other devs because they have been missing hard in the 2020s so far.

NRS is their best asset and even MK1 is meh which pains me to say as a fan of the series for almost 30 years.

Honestly they deserved this L

A terrible game releases that was clearly created by a team of tonedeaf executives:

Publishers and Executives: Why didn't anybody buy it?

Another case of 'Get Woke Go Broke'

At least they have Hogwarts Legacy to soften the blow. This surprised no one.

@Zenos yeah, absolutely. That's the reason it didn't sell. 100%.

Their first mistake was having expectations at all.

And in other news, water is wet.

The writing was on the wall from the very first gameplay reveal. This is not the game people wanted from rocksteady. The only people in the world surprised by its failure were those that decided the market was crying out for yet another terribly executed live service game.

@naruball One of the reasons clearly. GaaS wasn't the only reason.

Does this surprise anyone but WB? No? Didn’t think so. It’s not what most gamers want!

@Illyrian by not doing that, if you read my comment 😅

@IslandLogic Yes. It is only proof that humans blindly buy any stupidity...

Honestly, make a better game.

What did they expect ? Who likes live Service shooters anyway glad i didn't buy it think it's the end of Rocksteady

Jeez scrolling the comments on this post is like reading the same post in different words 40+ times

I like it when my iconic superheroes aren’t getting killed, WB. Tyvm.

I'm here to share in the schadenfreude we're all feeling right now.

I am jack's complete lack of surprise

@Zenos "Another case of 'Get Woke Go Broke'"

I thought your comment was parody at first 😅
What exactly was woke about it? Because Deathstroke was black? They were just going by the one that was featured in the movies.

Because Wonder Woman was the only one that got a heroic send off? Maybe because she has an upcoming game made by Monolith so they wanted to make her look as good as possible?

Again I'm not excusing the god awful writing showcased in the game, the people that wrote everything have probably never read a comic book in their life.

But you're trying to put the blame on going woke and going broke. I'm pretty sure the giant feminist film Barbie proved that people don't really care one way or the other, they just want to be entertained.

@Zenos It was a joke. Well half joking anyway.😁

So what was woke about it that if they made it unwoke this should have been free-to-start GAAS game selling for $70 was going to meet their expectation, more than say making it free-to-start, or $30 like Helldivers 2 and Palworld, b/c if you can't make it meet sales expectations simply by making it not woke then it wasn't the wokeness that made it not meet sales expectations. I'd bet like 99% of the people who say they didn't buy it "b/c woke" were never going to buy it anyway. 🤷‍♂️

BTW if you want a decent example of something failing b/c "woke", it does happen, see the newer Star Trek tv series on Paramount. I consider Trekkers to be a woke bunch but I believe even they have their limits to how much of it they want in their sci-fi.

@DarkHitman82G You're saying that while Helldivers 2 is the talk of the town lol. Problem when it came to Suicide Squad was that it was a super hero live service and every character is a shooter.

@Tecinthebrain The only woke thing I recall and it was pretty bad was when one of Lex Luthor's files talks about Wonder Woman and makes Lex sound out of character and bringing up toxic masculinity. Other than that that definitely was not the main reason for it's failure.

“Hey let’s make a game nobody wants, kill off the superhero’s everyone loves, and make it super repetitive and boring that’s surely going to sell a bunch of copies.”

@Tecinthebrain rocksteady is a very woke company now compared to its Arkham days.

People still hate live service without even realizing that Helldivers 2 is a live service game. The hypocrisy?? Just hate bad games my dudes.

Oh no! Who would've thought?!

Will someone think of the execs? 🤣

The "one year of support" claims were hilarious when they were made and i still fully expect them to break the promise.
The question is what will happen to the studio now. Closure or will they put them on a new single player game? I guess the chances of a new Batman Arkham just shot up.

No way they're this clueless lol.

There were a lot of bumps along the way to release, including poorly received trailers, then delays being announced for retooling. It would have probably taken a 180 to make the game a moderate success and it doesn't sound like they did that.

Anyone could have predicted this 😂

Such a shame it had to come to this. I hope Rocksteady gets another shot as it does seem like the game has some redeeming features but overall it's just not a very interesting project.

Maybe crank out a Miles Morales sized Batman Beyond or something. Just anything to wipe the bad taste from their mouth.

@jorel262 unfortunately the live service element was baked into its dna so would be hard to turn that around. They should end support for this and move on to the next project

@Zenos It's a pretty bad read if im being honest

@ATaco I think it’s the fact that rocksteady are known for its Arkham games and then decided to come out with this garbage

@carlos82
Who gives a crap who you kill. It's ballsy. It's unique.
People are such buutthurt fanboys, it's pathetic.
I would've loved killing DC heroes as the SS if the game was a good single player game, but it's live service crap.
The story premise is the least of its problems

I want to say that WB will hopefully learn from this and not make one more attempt at the live-service market but we all know, or should know, that the reality of business doesn't work like that sadly.

@GKT : True, I don't recall the Suicide Squad ever being that 'famous' or 'popular' even back in their comic-only days. I dunno when exactly Harley joined the group but outside of her I initially only knew about Deadshot among its members (and Waller but that was more because of her Justice League Unlimted appearance then SS).

Personally I believe the addition of Harley, who was the biggest fan favorite at the time, became a notable key factor in pushing the group into the limelight. That, and WB later on wanting to emulate the success of the first Guardians of the Galaxy film (considering how the GotG team used to be a relatively obscure group, like the Suicide Squad, before their cinematic debut).

Sounds like a typical comment from a commercial company. We are disappointed with sales. Well improve the product and don’t whine. Wh6 should we spend money of products that look unfinished

@KillerBoy
It's more than that, people just see the buzzword "Live Service" and immediately think that means that the game is going to be unfinished and incredibly predatory. Helldivers 2 proves that that doesn't have to be the case and that Sony shouldn't be scared of pursuing more live service games, they should be scared of pursuing more games like Suicide Squad.

I think if they cancel this game and the live service (which I fully expect them to do for financial reasons) they either need to add a proper single player mode or refund those who purchased.

At least avengers is playable. This won’t be!

What you expect? A crap game. deserve crap sells

@BeautifulCreatures 🤣👍

@Zenos Sure, buddy. While you're at it, wanna share with the rest of us what you mean by "woke" in this case?

It’s like people didn’t want an overpriced looter shooter from a dev team known for single player games

@BeautifulCreatures Yeah I wasn't really a fan of Wonder Woman's look in this game, looked a bit too masculine.

This sort of thing tends to happen when you make a live service game no one asked for or what rocksteady wanted to make. Should have made what the masses wanted a new batman game or something single player related

@Korgon id shell out for a Batman Beyond game for sure! That’s a good idea

@naruball Judging by his past comments, he clearly has a vendetta against women so you can guess what kind of person he is. Ignore the troll.

@Thumper Plus we read the reviews. So many of these LS games fail miserably (and they can't be cheap to make either)

Rocksteady: victims of their own success. They made such good games they got drafted into live service duty.

Well, no s**t.
It was doomed from day 1.

@Zenos if you say so boy!

Well I for one am shocked. Who could have ever seen this coming?

I think they already knew this was going to be below what they had hoped after the they had to delay the game for a considerable amount of time due to backlash on merely what the game was.

This was a terrible idea, especially with the dev and IP. Much as we've seen with the likes of Arkane, and Bethesda. The Rocksteady of the batman era lost much of its leadership and talent because of this gamble. I really hope this trend stops. Especially when you are trying to soap a Co op shooter or live service scheme into a gameplay style of established IP that has no business going there.

A game like he'll divers was already a Co op horde shooter that merely went third person and slapped on a battle pass system. So it worked out great.

If you are going to try and make a a super hero game into a Co op live service game the focus should have been on retaining the unique abilities of those heros, and the exploration and epic story pedigree of their universes. Traversing those adventures in Co op, with a subscription fee, or mtxs to support new adventures is how these all should be. Instead they try and pad out the retention through grind, repetition, social fomo addiction, and this ridiculous goal of an endless endgame loop which essentially is all of that grind and repetition void of real story or meaning aside from loot addiction.

It's shallow, and it's a death sentence to force successful narrative led ips with intricate game mechanics to be crammed into such a shallow model.
Rocksteady will likely never be Rocksteady again, and WB will likely not learn the lesson, fire people and now move on to trying to do the exact same garbage with Harry Potter. These are the lessons learned by these corporations run by people that don't even have a love or continued interest in enjoying the product they are pushing their Studios to make.

I really hope Sony doesnt take away the wrong understanding from the success of Hell divers. Because if they misinterpret its success we are going to see a lot more suicidesquads/fallout 76s/Redfalls to come from Sony owned Studios, and a greater exodus of talent as a result.

@KundaliniRising333 ''I really hope Sony doesnt take away the wrong understanding from the success of Hell divers. Because if they misinterpret its success we are going to see a lot more suicidesquads/fallout 76s/Redfalls to come from Sony owned Studios''

can we atleast get a twisted metal....

Just finished the story last night. Not bad at all actually. I enjoyed my 10-12 hours.

@Bentleyma or maybe it is a bad game

@Bentleyma It was fun with my brother and the story was pretty good until they ruined the ending. It is like Gotham Knights and Avengers- Middling but fun with a friend.

@Gryzor

I like it if the story is good and earns it.

I watched the story play through on YouTube. It did not earn those deaths. Not a single one. It was not “The Death of Superman” by any stretch of the imagination.

I mean they cannot be surprised this bombed right?

NO ONE ASKED FOR THIS GAME.

@nomither6 exactly twisted metal would totally work in that format!

I can’t believe this game got such a good review here. It looks like a predatory game-as-a-service pile of poo, with loot boxes and almost nothing to do with the franchises it presents..

It's almost as of people prefer quality single player games over crappy live service games. Weird. Not every game can or should be Fortnite. Rocksteady should have stuck with what they're good at. This is a surprise to absolutely no one. It really makes me wonder about the people in charge at WB Games.

They really thought gamers and DC comic fans would be happy with this product

@Jacko11 nah it wont be the same anymore the founders and all the top devs of Rockstar have all jumped ship or moved on

harley quinn and joker have been done to death who wanted a game that destroyed the lore of the games before it and left it in ruins almost like it was done on purpose WB can no longer ride off the success of the arkham series there is no return from this

All this game has done is got rid of the people who made rock steady rocksteady.

They have all left what is left?

It was such a bad decision to go chasing this market when your fundamentally a single player game maker.

I just find it odd that both developers went for this type of game. Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad.

Honestly am devastated that I waited this long for what Rocksteady would do next since the epic trilogy and this is all they could come up with and that trilogy is probably going to be the last great Rocksteady set of games we get.

How commerce works: consumer wants product, manufacturer makes product, consumer buys product if it is quality and priced to what they are willing to pay.

It doesn’t work by a company making a half finished product that no one asked for and expecting people to buy it and then be charged again for missing parts of the product that may or may not be delivered.

Business is simple when you listen to your customers.

I'm guessing they couldn't make a live service justice league as there is the DC online universe still about.

Maybe now, exec's will start to realise that games should strive to be original, and made for the purpose of fun, rather than chasing sales and the perceived notion of what's currently "trendy", I.e. live service, always online, etc. Yes, Helldivers has been a success- but it's also fun, before anything else.
Companies gotta have some faith in giving back to the fans who support them, rather than giving them what no one ever asked for.

@JSnow2 There's just such an over saturated market already, eith no one having enough time to play the games (that are finite) that they love. Then add all the other (successful) live service games, many of which are free to play, and who did they really think this title would grab? Hard-core fortnite fans aren't gonna drop it, nor are the destiny players, who are immersed in that content (if or when it drops). Such a small window of opportunity for a game like this, especially when the majority of fans were clamouring for a true sequel to the arkham series.

Kind of speaks to the idea of 'do what you do best', rather than chasing hype. Game would have worked as a character focused, mostly melee (exception of deadshot) 3rd person action game.

Oh no! Anyway...

Joking aside, this isn't susprising in the slightest. There are some rumors that the justice league might return but I'm pretty sure they're only doing it for damage control, and even if they bring they back, I hatdly doubg the interest would still be there.

This shows that not every single game needs to get shoehorned in a lifeservice. Helldivers 2 is a game first with some MT to available.

😂🫡Point on sarcasm had me in stitches

@Zenos Yeah they did Batman nasty, not gonna lie, entire game probably should have been in Elseworlds or multiverse or Flashpoint or infinite Earth's or wherever DC does those things. (Everything I know about DC comics I got from the Arrowverse tv shows 🤷‍♂️) I see "woke" and my brain goes to LGBTQ, slavery was good, and the Holocaust never happened, in that order, and Batman being shot in the face and killed by one of the most popular characters in DC right now wasn't on the list. But even if a super sexualized woman killing Batman was considered woke, which I guess it could be, that still seems like an after the fact excuse to me, not the reason someone didn't buy it.

Here's a list of 10 live service games that recently shut down within a year or 2, don't recall anyone saying it was b/c they were woke, do recall a lot of talk of "live service games suck". Especially regarding Avengers, which is probably 1 of the biggest reasons Suicide Squad crashed and burned. And whatever "Gotham Nights" was. I'm not even sure, just think it was DC based and crashed and burned.

https://www.thegamer.com/live-service-games-shut-down-quickly/#anthem

Suicide Squad was doomed from the start once they told us what it was. Even if Batman survived by doing nasty things to Harley the game was never going to sell, people are just sick of the live service stuff. And of DC in particular, and superheroes in general if movies in theaters are anything to go by.

Though if I read "get woke go broke" in relation to "The Marvels" I probably wouldn't bat an eye. It probably would have had a better reception as a season 2 of the "Ms. Marvel" tv show but as a Captain Marvel movie, well it just wasn't a Captain Marvel movie. Neither was the 2nd Dr. Strange movie a Dr. Strange movie any more than "Spiderman No Way Home" was a Dr. Strange movie. Disney kind of brought the "get woke go broke" heat upon themselves.😂

@AlexPorto its gASS

@Bolverkr yes a 100% agree about mk1 played them since the arcade. Too me it's a big back step from mk11. The combat is slow not fasted passed. The whole kameo system is foolish. The kameo character roster would had been better as playable characters. Kameo for them is just a term they used to implement a tag team with a ai player. Other then the female characters the character design and faces are bland. It is truly the worse mortal kombat ever. It takes forever to match for online. This was rushed out to ride the hype train of the new movie. To me it was unfinished its hard for me to believe this is a mortal kombat ED Boon is proud of. I think the higher ups rushed him to release this beta of a game.

Warner Bros:
"Oh no. Anyway - what other game can we release as live service? And make it a quick one so we can get some money".

@Lexluther23 I sadly have to agree with everything you said. I'm extremely disappointed with NRS and MK1.

I didn't even watch the trailer for the new characters even though I paid for them before launch, like I just have no desire to come back to it which hurts to say as a huge MK fan.

Wait til it hits game pass and rises like a Phoenix.